Extending Terrain

Bunglo · Jan 2012

I made the mistake of not working from the boarders of my level to the center gameplay areas and I've used up all my map. Now I don't have any terrain to work with for the outer terrain that will encompass it all.

What are some suggestions for perhaps extending the map size out, without effect what I currently have. I fear it may be a bit more complicated due to the terrain size/scale specifications used by the engine, so I'm not sure if a simple solution could exist.

Worst comes to worst, I'll just start anew but I just wanted some opinions on what might be possible before I run out of ideas.

Ark · Jan 2012

You can use the Modify > Resize Option from the Terrain Editor, but this may not add the terrain equally around whatever you have created.

Another way could be to export your heightmap, create a blank texture say four times bigger than your heightmap and paste the heightmap in the centre and import that onto a new terrain.

Bunglo · Jan 2012

I tried both of these earlier, the first just destroys everything, the 2nd works to a certain degree but it's not giving me an exact match. There's a few more things I'm going to try, if they fail I'll just start from scratch.

Cry-Caleb · Feb 2012

The best way i know of is to add more terrain in photoshop. If your heightmap is 2048 then make another heightmap that is 4096 and blend the 2 in photoshop with a layer mask. Try and make the borders for the "background" heightmap roughly the same height as the edges of your "gameplay" heightmap. That way when you paint out the seem where the 2 join you wont have a massive height difference.

I also like to make my background terrain a little taller then the gameplay terrain, it makes the player feel a bit smaller. If you raise the "max height" param for your terrain in the terrain editor window AFTER you import your terrain then it will darken the heightmap accordingly. So if i import my gameplay terrain with the setting of 512m and i set the max height param to 1024 after i have the heightmap in the editor already then 512 would become 128 grey on the heightmap instead of 255 white. You can then export the heightmap from the editor and combine it with another and have the backgroud terrain double the height of the gameplay terrain. (255 white would be 1024m after this) Just remember to set the max height at your new value (1024) when you reimport everything after working in photoshop.

Save our every object on your level as a group first so you dont need to redo everything, you can reimport it after on the new map and realign it.

P.S. Always use 16 bit for your heightmap in photoshop or you get a horrible stair stepping effect in the editor.

Extending Terrain

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